Talk:Chain Reaction
This page had nothing on it, despite the interesting and numerically-impressive results this skill can have. Yet to be tested: -What's the maximum range on the ricochet? It appears to be a similar distance to other "nearby" effects (such as Scorn), regardless of the weapon type, but I'm not sure if this is a hard limit or just the highest I've seen from a single perspective. -Although it seems that ricochets cannot, themselves, ricochet, is this a hard rule or just a product of diminishing returns (i.e. 40% of 40% of 40%...)? -Do Kinetically Reflected bullets have a chance to ricochet under Chain Reaction? I suspect they do (I've seen them trigger Cloud Kill, which also works "on hit"), but I can't be sure just yet. If reflected bullets can ricochet, this makes Trickster mods particularly appealing, even though they have no innate interaction with elemental effects. -Do multiple-component enemies (Nomad Torturers, Badass Constructors, Saturn, etc) count as one target or two (i.e. can a hit on a constructor's turret ricochet to the constructor)? I suspect they can (precedent: look how Zer0's B0re skill treats them), but the targets are often so close together that it's hard to see if it's a ricochet, particularly with an elemental weapon (which is otherwise one of the easier ways to see if you ricochet: did you light a bandit on fire before you saw him? If so, you got a ricochet.) -Are carrier effects such as Amp shots passed along on a ricochet, or is the ricochet considered a separate shot from the moment it reflects? Elemental effects certainly are passed along (which goes a long way to making this skill amazing), but I haven't checked with an amp shield yet. If they do carry on a ricochet, we might see even more interest in The Bee on Maya - but since Chain Reaction won't work on single targets, and it relies on a target being phaselocked, this would be of limited use (at best) against raid bosses. -Any special interaction with bullet-based weapons that have elemental "splash" effects (such as the Volcano, Hellfire or the Teapot)? I suspect that these effects may apply to the entire group each time the shot ricochets, which would be particularly impressive with the latter two. (I'm not lucky enough to have a Volcano or Hellfire to test with, and the narrow field-of-view from a zoomed Teapot makes the full effect of ricochets at time-of-impact hard to see. Plus, when you burst-fire a Teapot at a cluster of enemies, you get a wall of corrosion DoTs even without ricochets...) ---- Another question to go with the above; does the 'hail of bullets' from a BL2 bouncing bettie grenade (doesn't seem to be a page for it; the search goes to a BL1 page, which calls it bomblets, not bullets) count for this? --Azaram (talk) 05:08, March 8, 2013 (UTC) _______________________________________________________________________ Been doing a great deal of testing with Chain Reaction lately, so I figured I'd address some of the questions brought up here. First things first: elemental effects and ricochets don't seem to work quite the way you'd expect. Namely, it appears that if a bullet ricochets, the elemental effect will not proc on the initial target. It will proc on the target that richochet hits or simply not proc at all if the ricochet fails to hit an enemy. I'll continue testing this to be absolutely certain, but it brings up a rather interesting "disadvantage" to using Chain Reaction against single enemies, as it can prevent DOT effects from working on them. However, while elemental effects don't appear to work on both the initial hit and the secondary hit, all gun damage boosts do. This includes Amp damage, so once again, we see a major advantage in Chain Reaction due to the fact that it effectively doubles the power of an Amp shot when it procs. Perhaps even more significant is that splash damage seems to affect the first and second hits as well. I'll have to keep testing this to be absolutely certain, but as was assumed, this can make Chain Reaction especially effective with certain weapons like Torgue guns. Another interesting this: bullets fired from certain Tediore reloads are affected by Chain Reaction as well. I've found this to definitely be true of bullets fired from the Deliverance, and I'm currently waiting on another player to test out an Avenger's bettie-like reload bullet-spray is affected as well (a wholly plausible notion since those shots are also affected by Amp damage). Some of those other questions are still uncertainties. I have no idea if Chain Reaction can trigger on Kinetic Reflection, though I'll continue to test to see if I can get a definitive answer. Regardless, what I've found out so far about the skill is still further proof of it's surprising power. I initially thought it would be silly to make a build focused primarily on it, but it's proving to be more than worthwhile. BucklingSwashes (talk) 05:35, April 12, 2013 (UTC) ________________________________________ I've verified with another player that the bouncing-bettie-bullets from Avenger reloads don't seem to be affected by Chain Reaction like the Deliverance shots are, so that's a no-go. Avenger reload shots seem to function the same way that bouncing bettie grenades do in general, with the actual range being quite limited and the bullets themselves functioning more like large projectiles that can easily hit enemy models than normal bullets. Realized something regarding why Chain Reaction ricochets don't seem to be able to apply an elemental effect to the first target, and it may actually have something to do with Kinetic Reflection. Kinetic Reflection itself allows you to reflect enemy attacks that would otherwise proc an elemental effect, causing the effect to proc on them instead. (As far as I know, that elemental effect receives the full damage regardless of your level in Kinetic Reflection, which makes even just a single point in the ability a bit more useful against enemies wielding elemental weapons.) As a result, it seems plausible that other "ricochet" skills work the same way, like Chain Reaction or Gaige's N-th Degree skill. Elemental effects are probably designed to only proc on the final target hit, thus ensuring that enemy attacks during Kinetic Reflection won't cause their elemental effects to proc on you. I'm not absolutely certain of this yet, but it seems a likely explanation for the strange way that elemental effects appear to work with Chain Reaction. It also implies that Kinetic Reflection may be a particularly powerful "elemental resistance" skill, while simultaneously suggesting that Chain Reaction in general could weaken your elemental weapons' effectiveness when firing at a lone target due to a lack of elemental effect procs. Still doing more testing, will keep updating here. BucklingSwashes (talk) 18:10, April 12, 2013 (UTC) __________________________________________________ Well, despite what I had previously experienced with elemental weapons and Chain Reaction, I've today experienced multiple cases in which ricochets have resulted in both targets being affected by elemental effects. I'll have to continue testing this, obviously, but if this is indeed this case, it would appear that the elemental effect chacne is separate for each hit, as I've also had cases where the second target is the only one affected. (Not sure if I've seen the first target affected and the second target unaffected yet, but I'll keep my eyes open.) Worth noting that Xbox Live is down today, so it's possible - though unlikely - that some sort of hotfix relating to this may not be in effect, meaning that this could be a fluke of sorts. But I guess we'll see. Obviously, if these findings continue to prove different than what I'd found previously, I'll be updating the wiki regarding Chain Reaction's use when combined with elemental weapons. BucklingSwashes (talk) 21:03, April 13, 2013 (UTC) : Go Go Mr Wizard. :D --Azaram (talk) 11:59, April 14, 2013 (UTC) : ^ I appreciate your support! BucklingSwashes (talk) 20:27, April 16, 2013 (UTC) ---- Well, definitely official that elemental effects can occur on one or both targets. Far as I can tell, elemental effect chance is determined separately for the initial shot and the ricochet. This does arguably "double" your elemental effect chance per shot, making Chain Reaction that much more effective with the use of Maliwan weapons. (Adding Flicker to that can improve it even further!) Glad to know it, and adding it back to the wiki as another advantage of the skill. Also confirmed that splash damage from certain weapons (Torgue, some Maliwans, etc.) do indeed occur on both the initial hit and the ricochet. You pack points into Chain Reaction, grab Converge, and let loose with a Torgue AR, and you can start seeing some ridiculous numbers. Another interesting aspect of the skill that it seems to share with N-th Degree and Close Enough is that ricochets seem to automatically target critical hit points on enemies. They don't always hit their mark, but if you can get the right angle between your initial target and the second, it's a pretty awesome bonus on top of all of the other things CR does. When it comes to getting that perfect angle, I've found that targeting your Phaselocked enemy makes this work better against many enemy types (Bandits, Hyperion bots, etc.), and it also seems to help to target enemies that are somewhat behind the others in a group. It's hard to confirm for sure that the ricochets always target crit points, but it seems to be the case. The more I look into CR, the more impressive it starts to seem. Maxed out with a Trickster COM, it can nearly double the effectiveness of many weapons and skills during your Phaselocks. Hell of a lot of fun to watch it tear up enemies, too. I ran through the Creature Slaughter Dome with it a couple of days ago and it's simply hilarious to Phaselock one of the tougher Spiderants and let loose on their front end with a hail of bullets while his minions all go down to critical ricochets in seconds. There is one major downside I've come to see: Chain Reaction does indeed seem to have a fairly limited maximum range. I'm continuing to test to see if I can figure out just how much distance you can have between two targets, but it appears that keeping fairly close proximity between enemies remains a significant part of making the best use of the ability. This further accentuates the usefulness of Converge, and also makes running circles around your opponents to bunch them up a worthwhile tactic. Just a teensy bit more testing to do. Having tons of fun with this. BucklingSwashes (talk) 20:27, April 16, 2013 (UTC) ____________ Final update! It's pretty much official now: bullets that are deflected while Kinetic Reflection is active do indeed count as "your" bullets, and thus are affected by Chain Reaction! Kinetic Reflection obviously doesn't have a great deal of offensive power in the endgame, but regardless, having both your Phaselock and kill skills active simultaneously can be very entertaining when enemies start damaging themselves and teammates simultaneously from both reflected bullets and the ricochets you can cause with those. It's difficult - hell, probably next to impossible - to definitively say whether or not elemental effects caused by Kinetic Reflection reflections or any additional ricochets are affected by your own abilities that increase elemental effect chance, but it seems plausible. On a side note, it's fair to say that - at least based on a bit of similar testing - any advantages that can be applied to Chain Reaction ricochets (gun damage bonuses, elemental effect chances, etc.) also apply to Gaige's N-th Degree skill. Like Maya, Gaige has some very cool skill combinations that can take great advantage of her bullet ricochets. Gun damage bonuses from Anarchy, Amp shields, etc. receive the full effect on an N-th Degree ricochet, even if the initial hit occurred on a 50% damage Close Enough ricochet. Elemental effect bonuses from More Pep obviously apply, and with boosts to elemental effect damage from skills or COM's, she can make reallly impressive use of high-chance weapons against multiple opponents. Shock Storm - which occurs when an enemy is killed by a critical hit - can often proc from a ricochet since those ricochets still seem to target critical spots. Ultimately, there's just a lot to like about ricochets, regardless of which character you use. All in all, it's been a hell of a lot of fun testing all of this. Updating the Chain Reaction page with the last of my findings. Hopefully, with all of this knowledge regarding the skill, more people will look at is as an ability worth designing your entire build around rather than just a good place to spend points while making your way down the Cataclysm tree. Simply put, it's become my favorite skill in the game. BucklingSwashes (talk) 00:21, April 19, 2013 (UTC) : I've only got a level 3 siren, started her just to see the new 'got no skull' skin I'd bought, but that does sound like a lot of fun. Will have to level her next... --Azaram (talk) 12:43, April 19, 2013 (UTC)